Abu Dhabi to undertake largest overseas promotion campaign

Abu Dhabi is planning its largest overseas promotion campaign to date taking in 24 trade exhibitions and 13 road shows across 34 cities in 25 countries, an official of the Tourism and Culture Authority, TCA Abu Dhabi, has announced.
Mubarak Al Nuami, Director of Promotions and Overseas Offices at TCA Abu Dhabi, said, "We are expanding our footprint to new markets – namely Serbia, South Africa, Holland and Azerbaijan whilst established road show product will be extended to take in new destinations including Amsterdam." "The inclusions are based on increasing airlift patterns and identified potential outbound growth." New to the TCA Abu Dhabi Promotions line-up are two events scheduled for February – the Jeddah International Travel and Tourism Exhibition and IFT Serbia Travel Exhibition, which will run in Belgrade. In March, TCA's long-standing European roadshow, which normally takes in London, Frankfurt, Milan and Paris, will roll out, for the first time to Amsterdam.
"We have been receiving increasing number of Dutch hotel guests over the past 18 months and now benefit from significant airlift out of the Netherlands with both KLM and Etihad Airways servicing the route daily. Again, a dedicated campaign to stimulate the organic growth being achieved, should deliver significant returns." In the first nine months of this year, 16,161 Dutch guests checked into Abu Dhabi's 156 hotels and hotel apartments, which was a 35% rise on the same period in 2014. The Dutch guests generated 57,997 guest nights, which was up 33% year-on-year and they stayed, on average, just short of four nights.
April will mark Abu Dhabi's debut appearance at World Travel Market Africa and underpin the destinations new focus on the African market with a full time representation office in Johannesburg. The same month, the emirate's tourism industry will also be out in force, for the first time, at the Kazakhstan International Tourism Fair in Almaty. The Azeri capital of Baku will also feature in a destination road show in September which will also take in the Kazakh capital of Almaty.